


yes i feel just fine

by muchlessvermillion



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkwardness, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Tags will be updated when the porn occurs, The porn is gonna be in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 00:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11497557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: Dave and Karkat realize they want to ask Jade out.The only problem is that they're really, really bad at it.





	yes i feel just fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [circumlocute](https://archiveofourown.org/users/circumlocute/gifts).



> The prompt was: maybe something postgame, with jade coming into established dave/karkat and how that shakes out? i'd like feelings of jealousy to be kept to an absolute minimum, please! does jade have to instigate it or do dave and karkat manage to stop dancing around the 'oh shit we both still have a crush on her' issue? or, for something more explicit, maybe all three of them hooking up for the first time
> 
> I hope you enjoy this! This is only the first part; there's gonna be some first time hookups coming up real soon.

It wasn’t weird for Karkat.

Or- that wasn’t quite true. It probably  _was_ weird for Karkat. But it was weird for him in a different way. When Dave had finally gotten up the nerve to tell him that he thought he might be crushing on Jade again now that they were all together in the meatspace (which was a big step, okay, but they had been working on actually talking about things, and it's kind of hard to ignore shit until it goes away when you’re living with everyone involved), Karkat had just given him a thoughtful look and moved on. Dave hadn't been sure what that meant, honestly, and he was sort of confused that his boyfriend hadn't cussed him out or demanded they have a conversation right there wherein Dave would be forced to reveal every embarrassing thought he'd ever had- but, well, if Karkat didn't want to talk about it, Dave wasn't going to make him. 

Karkat, as it turned out, did want to talk about it. He just had to have a mini-freak first- but not about Jade, fuck no. That night, when Dave finally asked Karkat to talk to him about whatever had him gnawing at his lower lip like it had personally offended him, it turned out he was fretting over the logistics. Like, scheduling. Seriously. Legitimately. Dave was in love with a fucking _nerd_. He was worried about scheduling, and how it would work with everyone having their own rooms, and how to plan things out so they all got enough alone time, time as a whole, and time in individual pairs. 

"Dude," Dave had said. "She doesn't even know I like her yet. We have no idea what the hell she's going to say, even if I do tell her. She might, I dunno, wanna move out. She might, like, chemistry up an acid to pour on my head. I mean, probably not, but slow your roll cowboy, holy shit." Karkat had fidgeted, looking exhausted, and kind of pissed at himself for not knowing the right words (some things never change), but still a million times softer than the scared, hunched over kid Dave had first met in person on the meteor. 

"What if I- Fuck, Dave, what if I like her too?"

"Dude," Dave had repeated, feeling his heart do something super weird in his chest. "That would probably be the _best_."

So they had talked about it. And then they had talked about it some more. Dave felt a little out of his depth, here. Karkat had been pretty shitty at the actual dating people thing, but his whole weird troll culture had revolved around dating more than one person at once. It still kinda did, though the mandatory aspect of it didn't exist anymore. Dave hadn't seen any shit like that when he was still living on the OG Earth (unless you count, like, threesomes), but he also really hadn't been there long. Thirteen years feels like a ton of time when you're thirteen, but not so much when you're a full-blown adult that's died approximately a million times. 

But apparently it wasn't that weird for the humans on this Earth, either. Maybe it was the intermingling of the species and the kingdoms, or maybe it was just a fluke of the way the planet had developed, but it was true. He knew because Rose had come over just a few days after he and Karkat talked, given him a weird look, and suddenly started spouting off statistics about how, while experience with polyamory for trolls was at about the same level as it had been on Alternia, polyamory among the Earth C humans was _way_ more widespread. As if Dave couldn't use google for himself. Dave had no idea how she had known he'd need that. Karkat swore up and down he hadn't told her. Dave still sometimes worried that Rose was a mind reader, which would be fucking awful, because he couldn’t control some of the shit his brain did.  

It had taken some time to figure out what to say to Jade. Karkat had insisted on writing out this whole weird speech, and he'd literally typed it up and printed it out and given it to Dave to read over, which was hilarious. Dave scribbled notes all over it and doodled big sloppy bulges in the margins. He also, very kindly, only laughed a little bit at the way Karkat kept peeking over at him while he read, trying to act like he wasn't totally watching his face for reactions. 

They were in Dave’s room when it happened (just because you’re in love doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes want alone time, and it was nice to have your own space with your own stuff) and he was crosslegged on the bed, picking over the page with a red pen while Karkat pretended to be looking at his husktop screen. There were dirty clothes in a frankly impressive pile on the floor, and Dave’s laptop had the same album going on loop. Dave made a colorful edit to one of Karkat’s choice expletives, and looked at him. 

“I kinda think we just gotta take a deep breath and take the plunge, man. She totally knows something’s up.” Karkat’s head jerked up, and his ears followed, a few seconds delayed.

“What, no.” Karkat sputtered. “Why the fuck would she know something is up? We haven’t done anything yet!”

“Uh, maybe because you’re the least subtle person to ever grace this big blue planet? Seriously, dude, you make this face like you’re tryin’ to bite your own tongue off damn near every time she enters the _room_. I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re plotting her murder.”

“I do _not!_ Like you’re one to talk, anyway, you’re not even a quarter as smooth as you think you are, bulgelord.” Karkat leaned towards Dave, like getting closer would prove his point. “You stopped fucking making coherent words the other day when she picked up the table to move it. All your verbal skills turned to fucking _dust_ , you hypocrite. Which is frankly incredible, considering how goddamn hard it is to get you to shut the fuck up most of the time.”

“You know what,” Dave said, ignoring this valid point. “You’re right, I am a bulgelord. That’s not even an insult, I’m the lord of your bulge, I own that bitch.”

There was a rough snort. Karkat nearly gave himself whiplash turning around. 

“I’m, uh. Pfft.” Jade said, from where she was _totally in his doorway._ She seemed to be giggling, at least. She had a hand clapped over her mouth, but they were still bubbling up like spring water. “I was just going to ask if you wanted to order pizza, but now I’m mostly confused.” 

“Okay, well first off, I always want pizza, so jot that down.” Dave said, his mouth taking over while his brain fell to the wayside.

“Oh Jesus nookfingering _Christ_.” Karkat said, half off the bed. “Don’t you people _knock?_ No, don’t answer that, I already know, humans don’t fucking knock, humans never knock, humans don’t even have the word knock in their vocabulary, I should make some flashcards-” Jade stepped further into the room, grinning a little bit, and leaned against the wall.

“So,” Jade said, biting down on what was probably another laugh. “I kind of feel like I’m interrupting something? But also I don’t know who else has been lifting tables, recently.” Which was pretty reasonable, honestly, but also Dave was going to die.

“Oh my god.” Dave said, and shoved his hands over his face. He could feel Karkat reach across him and snatch his typed-up speech from his lap. Dave peeked between his fingers, despite his better judgment, to see Karkat squinting down at it. “Oh, dude, no.” Dave said, but Karkat barreled forward.

“Okay, so, I haven’t exactly had time for a second draft, which is frankly unprofessional, and Dave crossed out some really necessary wording, here, so if you laugh I’m going to crumple this up, shove it down your squawk gaper and leave, never to be seen again, which might be for the best, anyway-”

“Karkat,” Dave said, trying to retrieve the paper. “Dude, babe, no, do not read that right now, oh my god.” Karkat shoved his free hand into Dave’s face, holding the marked-up speech as far away from him as he could while still being able to make the words out.

“So, Jade,” Karkat said.

“That’s me.” Jade said.

“No, listen, that was rhetorical, you have to wait for me to _finish._ Okay. So, Jade. We’ve been friends, for, fuck- I don’t know, a while now? I don’t know if we counted as friends when we first met, because I was a total bulgeblister, and I know and acknowledge that now, but I’ve gotten better. I mean, I think so.”

“Karkat,” Jade said, and she was grinning super wide despite still looking vaguely perplexed. She stepped further into the room, closer to the bed, and Dave’s face was probably going to literally burst into flame and light his hair on fire and kill him, effectively putting him out of his misery. “We were kids! We were all total gosh darn fucks! We were the _worst_ , probably, and I mean literally all of us. You’re way better now.”

“Okay,” Karkat replied, and Dave could see his longass troll ears twitching, which meant he was embarrassed out of his mind too. Or horny, but it was probably the first one. At least he wouldn’t be dying alone. “But this isn’t really about me, right now, though I- You know, thanks for that, you’re right, wrigglers are inherently terrible.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Dave groaned, still reaching futilely for Karkat’s stupid speech. “I can’t believe this is my life right now.” Jade snorted and took a seat at the edge of his bed in response. Karkat’s fingers gave a little bit of slack as he watched her, wide eyed, and Dave took his chance. Dave managed to wrench the paper from Karkat's grasping hand, tearing it a little bit in the process. Karkat gave an affronted sound and looked down at the half of the speech that he still held, and then wheeled to face Dave. 

“Hey!” Karkat exclaimed, and Jade gave Dave a look which absolutely meant she was going to take the page from him, and holy shit, he was NOT strong enough to defend against Jade Harley when she wanted something. 

So Dave shoved the paper into his mouth.

“What,” Said Jade, and it really wasn’t even a question. Her eyebrows were so far up he couldn’t see them past her bangs. Karkat gave an affronted gasp, twisting around to face him. 

“Dave, what the _fuck._ ”

Dave himself was also wondering what, in fact, the fuck, but he couldn’t take it back now, so he just shrugged at them.

“Dave,” Karkat said, slowly. “You realize I literally have another fucking copy on my husktop, right? Like this has done effectively nothing except making you and I both look like complete and absolute idiotic fucksticks in front of our- In front of Jade. Holy _shit,_ Dave.” 

“Oh please,” Jade said, waving a hand breezily. “I already know you guys are idiotic fucksticks. Good thing I like you anyway!”

“Us too.” Dave admitted. They both gave him a weird look, so he gave up and spat out the gross papery pulp into his hand. “Us too.” He repeated. “That’s kind of the whole fuckin’ problem, here.” 

“I live with you,” Jade replied, a question in her tone. “I don’t really see the issue?”

“We, uh.” Dave had never really done this shit, Christ. Terezi was one thing; they had been babies, practically, and it had just sort of happened. He and Karkat had only talked shit out because they had gotten into a big blowout fight after ignoring each other for a couple of days, and subsequently blurted everything out at once. He didn’t know how to ask somebody out, when would he have ever learned? “We like you, like, a lot. Like more than you are probably expecting.”

“Which is shitty roommate etiquette.” Karkat put in. “And we would understand if you want to hit us with a newspaper and go crash on Rose and Kanaya’s couch.”

“They do have a really nice couch.” Said Dave, desperate. Jade blinked at both of them through the round frames of her glasses, her warm brown hands twisting at the colorful stim bracelets on her wrists. 

“Are you guys… badly asking to date me? Is that what’s happening, here?”

Dave closed his eyes and braced for death. 

“Maybe a little bit.” Said Karkat, his voice gruff. There was a silence. 

Jade jumped them both, tackling them backwards. Dave gave an oof as an absurd amount of solid muscle pressed him into his own bed, which was betraying him by bearing witness to this atrocity. He could feel Karkat, who was half on top of him, and squirming. 

“I should not be the second piece of bread of this sandwich.” Dave said, breathy from having all the air pushed out of him. “Not that I object to being on the bottom, usually, but if we do it this way I am going to turn into a pancake, and that ain’t even sexy, no one is into that, all my fans will mourn, it’ll be a national holiday. National Pancake Day. It already exists, but now it’s a day of respectful silence for me, squished to death tragically young-“

“Are you implying this would be just?” Karkat wheezed out, and then he made a shocked little noise. Dave opened his eyes a little bit to see what had happened, and then they flew open all at once, because Jade was enthusiastically kissing the hell out of Karkat’s mouth. 

“You dumbasses, you could’ve just asked!” She chimed, once she pulled back. Karkat was looking a little starry-eyed, but that could’ve been the lack of oxygen. Jade shimmied up with a grace she really shouldn’t be able to possess while climbing a boy like a ladder, and tilted Dave’s head up to face her too. “This is a yes, by the way.” She said, and then her mouth was coming down over his, and she was so warm, and so strong, and Dave let himself melt, just a little bit. Then he put a hand up to nudge her shoulder lightly, and she sat right up, a worried look on her face. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I should’ve asked first! Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, no.” Dave said, with an emphatic shake of his head. She had done everything absolutely right, actually, and he was probably still going to die, but for different reasons. “It’s just, we should move. If the two of us are gonna make out, I know for a fact that Karkat wants to watch.”

Jade’s grin spread, devious, and she reached for his hand to haul him into a better position. Karkat, a little to the side, reached for his other one. 

Okay, maybe Dave could hold off on the whole dying thing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is very silly and I am very sorry.


End file.
